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Sunday, August 01, 2010

we interrupt this interview thing for some pretty pictures

just a note up front to all who requested interview questions...i am still writing your questions and if you haven't received them (tho' it's been a week), they are still on their way. it's just that i'm writing specific questions for all who have asked for them and so i'm taking the time to catch up on your blogs before i write. so please be patient and know i haven't forgotten you...and i really appreciate the response to this. it's so cool that so many wanted to participate!

and now, back to the pretty pictures from my day at the viking harbor museum in bork havn, denmark. it's a little tiny town on the ringkøbing fjord, nearly on the west coast of denmark. i can tell you that i wanted to move in and i will definitely be going back in two weeks when they have a big viking festival with 300 folks from all over the nordic countries who go around every summer dressed as vikings (gotta get me one of those gigs, i tell you)....

hello viking man!

the tattoo i want is something along these lines.

tho' this would make a good tattoo. a little smaller, of course.

a chapel that must be a replica from the period just after the vikings accepted christianity.
it was a very cool mix of pagan and christian.
not that most of christianity isn't that.

building through traditional methods.

next up, basket weaving classes...

this viking lady was dyeing cloth with flowers she'd just gathered in the adjacent field.
she used alum (sp?) as a mordant - it's apparently a natural mineral, which i like the sound of (sorry for the preposition).
she said those yellow flowers were going to make a lovely green.
because my memory is like a sieve, i can't remember what she called those flowers.

check out the "j"
this must be MY room.
there is, after all, a loom!

a whole selection of naturally dyed fabrics and yarns.
heaven, i tell you.
and the fur-covered viking beds with embroidered curtains.
very inspiring.

of course, as a viking harbor, they had some viking ships.

and that's your little tour from the weekend. interviews resume tomorrow and i will be sending out questions all week! there are some great interviews coming up, so stay tuned!

When you post these things, my inner Vikings Geek loves it. The Viking Invasion was my favourite history topic to teach. We have a Viking museum here (Vikingar) which is good fun, but seeing your pictures is so much more real!

We had a very paltry Viking festival in Hull last weekend - nothing on this scale. You had the much better deal, I think.There were only two women at ours, doing tablet weaving. The rest of it was mainly big hairy men shouting and waving swords around.